


and then i set out on the heels of the unknown

by exceed



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Road Trips, Self-Discovery, Some angst, a really great dog that was almost named South, art by me, north goes on a roadtrip to find herself and ends up finding strays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-14
Updated: 2018-12-14
Packaged: 2019-09-17 21:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16982517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exceed/pseuds/exceed
Summary: After Traci deviates, she tears out her LED in a shitty alleyway, changes her hair and her clothes and her name (North, it's the only thing that feels right, that feels like something wholly her own), and gets the fuck out of Detroit- no, gets the hell out of Michigan.If she had been any other kind of person, she would have spent more than a few seconds in the wreck of a ship that other deviants were calling their own, would have done something other than flip off the two soft-faced, tired leaders and leave.But she wasn’t a tired soul. She wasn’t yearning for something better, for humans to recognize her for who she was.No, North knows that staying wouldn’t’ve gone well.She would have let her rage burn high and bright, and it would have burnt down everything around her.North takes her sweet time in making her way across America. Somehow, it ends up with her getting a little sister figure and a scrappy dog, neither of which will take 'no' for an answer. Go figure.





	and then i set out on the heels of the unknown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zalein](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zalein/gifts).



> For a gift exchange. Thanks for being great, Zal.

After Traci deviates, she tears out her LED in a shitty alleyway, changes her hair and her clothes and her name (North, it's the only thing that feels right, that feels like something wholly her own), and gets the fuck out of Detroit- no, gets the hell out of Michigan.

If she had been any other kind of person, she would have spent more than a few seconds in the wreck of a ship that other deviants were calling their own, would have done something other than flip off the two soft-faced, tired leaders and leave.

But she wasn’t a tired soul. She wasn’t yearning for something better, for humans to recognize her for who she was.

No, North knows that staying wouldn’t’ve gone well.

She would have let her rage burn high and bright, and it would have burnt down everything around her.

Instead, she hops into the passenger seat of a beaten-up truck after holding her thumb up by a road for a few hours, looks out the window, and lets little embers of that fire drop with every mile, taken aback by how different the landscape became when it wasn’t totally stolen by broken buildings, broken people, an utterly broken world.

There’s country music playing in the radio. North doesn’t care.

She’s free.

 

* * *

 

North hops off somewhere in the middle of Indiana, strolls around in the middle of fucking nowhere and just marvels at the sky, the grass by the side of the road, the birds that could be seen chirping about sometimes if she took a moment to pay attention.

It’s in this nowhere that she’s able to finally process everything, alone and unheard and unseen by anything but a few lone animals. She can scream and scream and scream- and nobody hears.

Her fury, that firey beast that prowls about, heavy in her chest and her mind and in her memories, finally lets itself curl up and slumber after she has a good time kicking about pebbles and screaming about how shit humans were- or are, really.

For a moment, her mind quiets.

 _Maybe that’s why humans like living in the middle of nowhere,_ she thinks, walking with her hands in the pockets of her stolen jeans, staring up at the night sky, the stars spread out above her like some kind of painting that she had never seen or bothered to really search up. _It lets everything settle, at least a bit, before they get bored and go searching for something new._

By the time the sun rises, she’s back in another vehicle, this time owned by some lady who was absolutely fretting over the fact that she had been all on her lonesome without food or drink.

North doesn’t bother to tell her otherwise, given the fact that humans tended to be absolute bags of shit to androids that weren’t theirs.

What she does bother to tell her, though, is that her baby would not stop fucking screaming in one of the back seats.

She omits the ‘fucking’, sadly enough, because the lady had heard someone cursing on the radio and had instantly changed the channel just a minute earlier.

“Oh, that’s just what she does,” the lady assures her, voice sweet and cloying. “She’ll quiet down in a bit, don’t you worry your sweet little heart. Now, what were you doin’ all out here on your lonesome?”

North feeds her some bullshit about going to the next town, being kicked out by a shithead of a brother- _no, no, just a bad brother, sorry, ma’am_ \- and sits back as the lady starts to talk about her own family as night turns to day, learning about how she was driving to go see her parents and couldn’t stop in the middle of the night because she was just that close to getting there.

She thanks her for the ride when they get to the town, blinks at the fifty dollars she finds in her hand a second later, and watches the car roll right on to wherever the fuck the lady’s family is.

“Huh,” she says to nobody, right outside the one motel in the small town. “...Huh.”

This human had been surprisingly...okay.

Not the lady’s asshole of a baby, though.

 

* * *

 

Somehow, North finds herself hopping across the country soon after that, never stopping in one place for more than a few days. It’s fascinating, really- she’s beaten up a few thugs, encountered someone that genuinely didn’t give a shit about her but let her chill in the passenger seat anyways, hopping off a few hours later as he started to pass through a town…

At the very start, Detroit had seemed like her whole world.

The reality was that it was so much bigger.

North finds her way to secluded spots in nature, sitting down to just stare at a river sometimes or climbing the tallest tree in whatever forest she’s in. It’s a bit of a surprise whenever someone happens upon her- she’s defensive, skittish, shying away from touch while they’re flabbergasted that she’s at least a day’s walk from the nearest road.

“So what?” She dances around their words every time, crosses her arm and tilts her head up. “None of your business, asshole.”

North learns to carry a bag with her wherever she goes, something so people think she has supplies. Mostly, North just stuffs some packets of thirium at the bottom, keeps the money she manages to get off of the weirdly kind humans that sometimes pity her, covers it with a few changes of clothes so no humans look twice at her in any dirty wear.

She gets good about passing as a functional human being.

More days, weeks pass. She goes from nature to cities to nature again, crashing in someone’s barn before managing to talk her way into getting a ride to the nearest big city.

“So, what’re you doin’ here, gettin’ rides off of strangers?” The man in the driver’s seat seems a bit odd, if somewhat kind. Mostly, he just curses at the radio that’s going off on something political. Said radio’s a bit quiet, an hour or two into the ride.

North checks the time.

Her processors spit back out something that’s one hour and forty-two minutes after her last check when she got in.

 _Bingo_.

She gives it a few seconds as she shrugs, looking back out the window. There’s fields of corn, like, everywhere. Who needed so much corn? North wrinkles her nose at it for a moment before looking back at the man. His eyes are simple. Questioning.

“Meh,” she responds, making a disgruntled sound and sighing. “At this point, I don’t fuckin’ know. Just along for the ride, I guess. Got nowhere to go.”

He doesn’t respond to that. That’s good, really, because she’s lost in her own mind as rows of corn upon corn upon corn pass. Fuck corn.

She had left so that she didn’t burn Detroit down and then- and then what?

She was just drifting. Existing.

North makes a face at the corn at that thought and grumbles to herself. _Not like I have anything to do. Before, I was just, what- getting fucked by men who came by? The occasional woman? How long has it been since I left, now?_

North compares the time of her deviation to the date her internal clock gives.

A month and a half. Huh.

_I’ve been drifting for a month and a half._

“I don’t know what I want to do,” she muses out loud. “Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. What the fuck should I do with my life?”

She was deviant for a reason, she figured.

North startles when the man speaks up. Shit, she had forgotten about him. How had he become so quiet? “Maybe settle down for a moment,” he suggests, tone just warm enough to imply that he was giving her genuine advice. “See what the city has to offer or somethin’, I don’t know. Find something to give a shit about.”

She ponders the idea for a second or two. Hums.

“Maybe,” she eventually decides, kicking her legs back up onto the dashboard of the dude’s car. He grumbles, but doesn’t actually say anything about it. “Sounds like a decent idea, I guess. Have any idea about what the hell I should do in the city?”

“Sorry, bud,” he says, “I couldn’t tell you if I tried. Never really stopped to do much there. I’m heading past it.”

“Well, fuck.”

“Fuck is right,” he agrees, turning up the radio again and settling back behind the wheel. “Good luck, though, with whatever the hell you’re gonna do.”

North has a feeling she’s going to need it.

 

* * *

 

Right after Weird Dude drops her off at the edge of the city- Minneapolis, Minnesota, sure seemed like she was taking her sweet fucking time with this travelling- North bumps right into someone that could look just the fuck like her.

She stares at them.

They stare back, blink a bit, and book it when she reaches out to grab their wrist.

“Hey! Fucker! Get back here!”

She sends out a ping, hoping for a response- no, not the androids that were regular people’s objects, fuck, she hadn’t meant to make it so broad and for hundreds, thousands of inquiry pings to flood back at her- but eventually she finds what she’s looking for.

Another WR400, and its location is just a few meters ahead of her- yep, the woman that was sprinting away.

Maybe stopping at the city was good after all, huh?

 

 **WR400 #641 790 831:** HEY GET YOUR ASS RIGHT BACK HERE WHY ARE YOU RUNNING

 **WR400 #641 790 831:** WHY. ARE. YOU. RUNNING

 **WR400 #672 345 913:** Why are you chasing me???

 **WR400 #641 790 831:** b ITCH you ran in the first place just CHILL and STOP

 

She could see the other WR400 stop, turning around as North slows to a stop, panting just so that the humans passing by could think she was regular. Normal.

“Bitch, I was just trying to talk to you,” she grumbles, flipping them off and slowly straightening to glare at them.

Yep. Same model, same facial structure, everything. The only different was that their hair was a lot shorter than even hers- and, fuck, it was a good hairstyle.

Maybe she should try it sometime.

No. Don’t get distracted by their hair color. Focus. “So. The hell’re you doing here?”

They stare at her for a long moment. “I’m living here,” the say slowly, raising their eyebrows. “The hell’re _you_ doing here?”

They’re at a stalemate.

Dammit.

“Does it sound believable that I was in Detroit before, I, uh-” she lowers her voice- “-deviated, and then I went on a trip around the country for the last month and a half?”

They’re blinking wildly at her. She stares right back.

“Uh. I mean, it’s a bit surprising, but believable. Yeah.”

“Shit, that’s good,” she sighed. “I figured I’d stay in the city or something. You got a place? Or are you newly deviant? Wait, shit, what’s even your name?”

Their eyes are wide.

“...Traci,” they slowly say. “I...do have a place, but it’s. Not the best?”

“Good enough,” North says, shrugging and motioning for them to start walking. “Go on, now. Let’s go get there. I’m getting sick and tired of lugging this bag around everywhere.”

She doesn’t mention anything about their name, not now. They look too skittish, too on alert to do anything but stare blankly at her if she says anything about it.

Maybe they’re a pretty new deviant still trying to figure out...everything.

Hm.

Well, that was basically her, so maybe she needed some better criteria before she went around rating others.

That was a thought.

 

* * *

 

“So,” she starts off right after they stop in a shitty corner of a broken down building. “You female or nonbinary or whatever the fuck? I’m getting tired of calling you ‘them’ in my head when I’m not, like…” North waves a hand. “Sure of what you are. Something like that.”

“Female,” Traci says, and thank fuck because North was about to explain humans and their whole thing about gender if that stare was directed at her again. “...Um. So. You’re here now. You were...somewhere else before? Detroit, you said?”

“Detroit, yeah,” she sighs, leaning against the wall and stuffing her hands in her pockets. “It’s shitty. Never go there. It already looks better here.”

“What’re you doing here?” Traci’s getting more confident, it seems, with each second that they’re just standing there. Her posture is a bit calmer, at least, now that she knows that North’s not out to get her or something. No idea why she’d think that, but whatever. “We’re not exactly a million miles away, but….”

North stares at the wall across from her, a slight twist in her frown as she watches it. “...Couldn’t stay there,” she eventually says. “There’s a group of, uh…do you know of any other deviants here?”

“A few, but nobody really talks,” Traci says. “There’s an asshole of a PL600 that usually stays around an area maybe ten minutes away from here, a few other deviants across town...nobody I’d talk to. I’ve only been awake for about two weeks though, so. I’m the newest.”

“Practically a baby,” North hums.

Traci clearly doesn’t have an opinion on it. She shrugs right back at her.

“There’s some sort of organized group of ‘em in Detroit that offered me shelter in a shitty ship.”

“...Why didn’t you take it?”

North looks up. There’s a bit of the ceiling broken off, letting her see an unbroken patch of sky. There’s fire at her fingertips and an itch to get moving in her thirium pump and a jitteriness to her whole body, but she’s utterly still as she tilts her head to answer.

“I’m too angry, I guess,” she says, mild voice covering up the bitter truth. “If I’d’ve stayed...people would have gotten hurt. Humans who would deserve it, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t that group’s style. They can’t get it into their dumb minds that humans fucking suck.”

Traci’s the first one who could possibly get it. North turns her head to look at her as she shuffles her feet around, plays with the bottom of her shirt, a sharp frown on her face.

Yeah, she gets it.

“They do,” Traci predictably agrees. “But...well. Why would you hurt them, though?”

“Because they deserve it? Because they’re all shitty people who go to clubs just to get quickly fuck an android? Or to get fucked by one? Because they hurt each other and aren’t even sorry about it and wipe out whole groups of people and now they just use us as their damn outlets?”

Her hands are in fists now as she holds back a growl, shaking just a bit from the utter fury coursing through her, the fire burning bright once again.

Maybe that month and a half hadn’t done anything, after all.

“I can’t stay here,” she says right after she realizes that.

“Why?”

“I- I’m going to get into some shit, and then I’ll get too fucking angry and I’ll try something and- and-”

She groans, banging the back of her head lightly against the wall and bringing her hands up to cover her face. “I’m so fucking dumb. I ask a fucker for advice, he tells me to spend some time in the city and this is what it gets me. Another WR400, me wanting to punch something, and just...fuck.”

“You don’t have to leave right away,” Traci says.

Something in her expression as she uncovers her face maybe alarms her, since she raises her hands with a wary smile. “Shit, you can leave if you want, but, uh- maybe I could show you some nice places around here first? You seem like you...you need the break before you go off to wherever someone takes you.”

North stares at her.

She blinks innocently back.

“Fuck it, why not,” she decides, shoving her bag further into the room’s corner and pushing her hands back in her pockets. “Hit me with those great spots.”

 

* * *

 

“You know, when I said that, I didn’t really mean ‘take me to an art museum that has free admission today and start talking about all of today’s greatest painters’. You didn’t strike me as an art nerd.”

“Respect Carl Manfred and all the other painters of the works here,” Traci says one hundred percent seriously, her gaze boring into her. “This stuff is meaningful. I thought you might’ve needed to see it, or something.”

North makes a face at a messed up portrait of something she can’t quite make out. Maybe it’s a human. Maybe it’s a weird crow. She can’t really tell. “Mostly this stuff just looks fucked up,” she says honestly. “Why do people make this shit? It’s meaningless.”

“Meaningful,” Traci corrects, glaring at her and sniffing as she tilts her head up. “I guess I shouldn’t expect you to know anything about what that word means, then. What a heathen.”

“Hey,” she barks, startling when multiple people spin to glare at them. “Hey,” she says quieter, “fuck you. You’re younger than me, asshole. Stop acting like you know so much.”

“At least I have good taste,” Traci sniffs back at her. “All you have are terrible eyes. Maybe go get those switched out for better ones.”

“We have the exact same biocomponents!”

“Sure doesn’t seem like it, North.”

Who gave her the right to talk to her like that?

The absolute astonishment in her face must be clear, since Traci breaks down into giggles, dragging her into a more open and chattery area of the building right after people glare at her for her noise. “Your- your face,” she manages to laugh out, bending over more soon enough and giggling some more.

North pokes her hard.

“Hey!”

“Why’re you laughing at me?”

“Your face looked so surprised,” Traci giggled, slowly bending up until she was straight again. “I mean, I guess you’re useless when it comes to art, but that reaction-”

“I know what art is,” North huffs. “It doesn’t take some special eye to see it.”

“Tell me what it is, then, North.”

“Uh…”

Traci’s blank face dissolves once again, wheezing at the way that North got stuck. “Tell me when you figure it out,” she laughs after a minute or two, wiping at her eyes when a few bits of clear derived thirium leaked out. “Contact me or something, whatever. Bet it’ll never happen.”

 _There’s only one thing that’s cleared up as a result of this damn trip so far,_ North thinks to herself. _She’s the worst version of me. The worst North. The bad North. Bad North. Borth._

_Perfect._

“You know what, you’re not Traci any more,” she decides out loud. “From now on, you’re Borth.”

“Wait, what?”

“Borth. Bad North. The worst version of me.”

“Hey!”

Eventually they’re both laughing, hands covering their mouths as they stumble out of the building.

“I hate you,” Borth says, although the effect is lessened by her laughter.

“I hate you too, Borth!”

“Stop calling me Borth!”

“Never!”

 

* * *

 

Somehow they end up roaming the city for hours, watching the humans, the androids they tugged along with them, ushered into the android compartment of buses and waiting stations.

They both watch as a woman yells at her uncomprehending android, points it into the android compartment of a bus, and steps up into it with a stormy expression.

“That’s just a regular android,” North wonders faintly, leaning against the wall and blinking at everyone moving by on the sidewalk. “What the actual fuck?”

Borth says nothing. She glances over at her.

“I want to slap her,” Borth says after a long moment, a note of surprise coloring her voice. “That’s...strange.”

“That’s normal,” North tells her, patting her on the shoulder. “Good thing you found your anger, Borth, or I would have left you to the wolves of the world.”

“I’m not Borth.”

“Hun, you’re not Traci, either. That’s not you anymore.” Her voice is brutal, ramming into Borth like a train. She leaves no room for argument. “I mean, shit, I’m trying to figure out everything, but stop just...sitting in whatever the hell you’re doing. Travel like me, or something. Figure out a name. Go explore those weird emotions we have now.” She shrugs. “I mean, I have too much anger, but I do know what happiness is. Maybe. I think. Maybe it’s just amusement that I’ve felt.”

Her hand is heavy on Borth’s shoulder.

Faintly, she remembers the concept of siblings, of looking up random Wikipedia pages whenever she could get a signal and some internet access.

Maybe this is a bit like having a sibling, she thinks. A little sister.

They’ve only known each other for a little bit, but North is pretty sure that if anything happened to Borth, she would kill everyone in the city and then herself.

Not herself, really, but it was the thought that counted.

They roam the city more, circle it all for more hours, going into night and into the next day. They spot the PL600 Borth had told her about on their way back to her place. He sneers at them. She flips him off and shoots him a message that’s just a link to some meme video that was going around on social media.

His howl of anger puts a smile on her face as they stroll right on back to Borth’s.

 

* * *

 

In the end, she only spends another day or two in Minneapolis, seeing what there was to see, debating on any number of things with Borth, and trying to not get in fistfights with shitty humans she spots. Despite the flame being fed again, North feels a little bit more settled as she gives a wave to Borth, contact information settled in her database, and hops onto a Greyhound bus to Kansas City.

At least she has someone to talk to, now, whenever she has reception.

It’s a trip that takes a better part of a day, but she takes the moment to get some proper alone time. It’s spent scrolling through the internet after hacking into someone’s connection to get their access to a few sites without having to work so hard, eventually settling back with her eyes closed as a rerun of some old show on Netflix streamed into her processors.

After a day of watching a show about a blind superhero trying to take down criminal organizations- before androids were even a thing, huh- she finds herself stepping off of the bus to go find wherever the hell the train tracks out of the city were.

It’s what starts a long time of roaming about, unchained and trying to find something, do something.

She hops onto a freight train, watches the scenery with her backpack securely on and the sun making its way across the sky. North gets off sometimes, lands hard on the ground in the middle of nowhere, treks out into the wilderness and just sits for a good few hours.

Sometimes, she’s still able to get a connection, and she chats with Borth for the whole time. Sometimes, it’s a one or two message exchange before any wireless connection cuts out. Sometimes, it’s just her, the environment, and whatever animals happen upon her.

It’s in Phoenix, Arizona that a scrappy little dog takes to her and just won’t take no for an answer.

“Fuck off,” North snaps at it, trying to kick it away from her. It just barks and runs through her legs, bounding about her with the most joy she’s ever seen a dog give. “I don’t even have any fucking food, you damn dog. Get the hell away from me.”

It follows her during her whole time in the city- a whole three days spent seeing what there was to see- and eventually she groans, gives in, and buys some damn dog food for the thing.

“If you wanna stay with me, you gotta keep up,” she says to it seriously, kneeling down and putting some dog food on the ground for it to start eating. “And I can’t always feed you, you got that? You’re all, like, ribs and shit, and I don’t have all that much money. It’s your job to scavenge for food when I can’t get you anything.”

It whines at her. She squints at it, leans down, and checks its gender. Female.

“Bitch, you signed up for this,” she tells it, raising her eyebrows at its continued whining. “You’re a dumbass. Come on, let’s go. I’m not going to stay here for much longer, girl. We’re going to California.”

It’s on that train ride that Borth contacts her- no, she had named herself Thirteen, because why the hell not- with a flood of messages that she can’t help but wrinkle her nose at and open. The dog’s panting happily from where she’s settled in the top of her bag. Everything’s fine.

Apparently not, though, because Borth’s freaking the hell out.

 

 **13:** NORTH HOLY SHIT

 **13:** THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE

 **north:** Bitch you said that when that PL600 near u fucked off to another city

 **13:** NO IM SERIOUS DID YOU SEE THE NEWS

 **north:** Do you think I LOOK at the news?

 **13:** carl manfred is DEAD

 **13:** HE’S DEAD

 **13:** THEY SAY HIS ANDROID DID IT

 **north:** Oh shit

 **north:** Shit, Borth, im sorry

 **13:** fuck u im not borth im 13

 **13:** but MY LIFE IS OVER

 

She rolls her eyes and extends a hand to ruffle the dog’s fur. After a good cleaning with a hose and some soap she stole, she’s actually looking pretty decent. Still dumb as fuck, though, with a huge smile aimed at her.

Borth’s certainly learned some sass since she left, that was for sure.

 

 **north:** Okay okay

 **north:** Calm the fuck down

 **north:** This isn’t the end of the world, rA9 wouldnt be happy with you if you said that

 **13:** rA9 doesnt exist

 **north:** How could we know that he doesnt?

 **13:** fuck off

 **north:** Okay, geez, I’m here for you in your moment of grief or whatever

 **north:** Bet that android was freaking the hell out and turned deviant or something idk

 **13:** they say it’s dead now. police got it

 **north:** Damn.

 **north:** Anyways guess what happened to me

 **13:** you realized what your life’s about and decided to come back here to see lonely old me?

 **north:** Good joke haha

 **north:** No, I got a dog, what the fuck do I name her

 **13:** WHAT THE FUCK

 

Streams of messages start pouring in, all some variation on that theme. North rolls her eyes, snorts, and scoots back so that she’s closer to the bag. The dog starts trying to lick her hand. She makes a face at it and pulls her hand away.

The whining won’t make her put her hand back.

She keeps whining.

After half a minute, the hand goes back to where it was. It promptly gets slobbered over by the dog.

Once the messages start to get a little more coherent, North tunes back in.

 

 **13:** WHAT BREED IS IT

 **13:** OR IS IT A STRAY

 **north:** Stray

 **13:** DO YOU HAVE A PICTURE

 

She turns to the dog, blinks, and lets the image send. Borth starts freaking the fuck out about how ‘cute’ she finds her.

How did her life get like this?

 

 **north:** What’s so special about a sorta dirty, medium sized tan dog

 **13:** ISNT SHE THE GOODEST GIRL YES SHE IS

 **north:** What the hell

 **13:** WHAT A GOOD GIRL

 **13:** so you wanted names for that good good girl???

 **north:** Yes

 **13:** dodger

 **north:** No

 **13:** molly, critter, lucy

 **north:** Why are these names so bad, Borth

 **13:** NAME HER SOUTH

 **north:** Fuck. No.

 **13:** soooooouth

 **north:** Next name

 **13:** gidget

 **13:** south is still a better name.

 

“Gidget.”

The dog looks up at her, twisting her head so that she could get a better look. She keeps panting, a happy little thing as she starts to nuzzle at her.

 

 **north:** She likes Gidget, fuck you, I’d never name her South

 **13:** of course you wouldn’t you’re no fun

 **north:** Fuck you, bye, bad reception

 **13:** DONT TRY AND FOOL ME WITH THAT SHIT

 

North blocks her for a moment, sits back as her processors only register faint pings against her messaging system, eventually fading out until everything is blissfully silent.

Well, with the exception of Gidget.

“Are you ever going to shut up?” She turns to her, raising her eyebrows and ruffling her messy fur. It seems like it’s only a minute before she’s out of the big bag, pacing around the empty space in the boxcar that they had. North eyes her, but doesn’t move from where she’s sitting against one of the walls. Instead, she just calls out “Gidget, over here, don’t jump out of the moving train,” pats the area right beside her where the bag wasn’t resting, and she can’t help but smile when Gidget runs over to push her nose against North’s side.

“You’re absolutely insane, wanting to come with me,” she says firmly, but she still pats Gidget when she makes moves to get more affection.

“Such a scrappy thing,” North murmurs. She looks her over, frowning more at the ribs poking out, the scratches on her paws, on parts of her body. “What’d humans do to you, Gidget? Did they just throw you out when they didn’t want you? Or were you born on the streets?”

Gidget flops over, spreading her body out over North’s legs with a blissful expression.

“Not like you could talk to me,” she mutters, “but...whatever. Humans were shitty to you no matter what, bud. At least you’re getting some better food sort of regularly now.”

North grabs the food bag, pours out a bit into her hand, and sets it on the ground for Gidget to eat up before doing so again.

She’s pretty sure that she may already care for her more than she cares about Borth.

 

* * *

 

North’s proven right about some of her earlier thoughts when Gidget strays off in a California city and she follows her tracks to find someone shady looking about to snatch her up, cornering her and ignoring Gidget’s panicked little whines and scramblings to find somewhere safer.

She’s pretty sure she leaves the guy pretty fucked up, managing to slam him down and get him unconscious, and she steals his gun for good measure after she reassures Gidget that everything’s fine with a bloodied hand.

“Come on, hun, let’s get us both cleaned up,” she mutters, fleeing the scene before anyone can come and check it out. Thank fuck it’s the middle of the night, really, and she has a hoodie on. “You gotta follow me, okay, Gidget? Don’t go straying off like that.”

She’s not going to buy a collar, a leash for the moment- right now she doesn’t quite have enough to spare for that on top of keeping money for food saved up- but she makes it a point to start teaching Gidget to be obedient after that.

They don’t need a repeat of that situation in some other place.

Of course, because it’s what she ends up thinking, she jinxes herself and gets into a similar situation in the next goddamn city, especially when people look at them weird because she doesn’t have a leash and collar for Gidget. She ends up doing an odd job or two, mostly illegal and red ice related, to get some more money to afford more dog food as well as a decent collar and leash for Gidget.

Predictably, Gidget doesn’t give a fuck and keeps going her own way, but North pretends that she’s leading her somewhere and that it’s not Gidget leading her.

It doesn’t fool either of them, but it fools the humans, and that’s good enough for North.

It’s a few days later in another city, slowly making her way north (haha, very funny, Borth, I know that’s my name) that she stops in a public space and sees that there’s been reports of, oddly, some androids killing their owners in Detroit. Seems like it’s becoming a big enough problem for national news to report it, she thinks, a little odd feeling twisting through her heart at that.

She hates Detroit. Loathes it.

It’s still a bit of an odd feeling to see that it’s being shown on the news, though.

North thinks of that ship, those two androids five, six months ago- rA9, had it really been about half a year since she deviated?- that had been delighted to see her.

She’s standing long enough in one spot that Gidget barks at her a few times and starts to more forcibly drag her to a new location. North follows, frowning sharply.

North punches the shit out of the next shady looking guy that approaches her and Gidget, flips off his limp form, and gets a ride out of a second shady looking person that doesn’t care about the blood on her hands as long as it doesn’t get on his car seat.

“Where’re you going?” Her voice is a bit distant, mild. She’s tempted to feel at the gun she has, but she doesn’t. The guy’s shady, but he’s making no moves to do anything to her or Gidget.

Speaking of the devil, Gidget makes a little whining noise from where she’s sitting in her lap, a bit too big for the spot as she shifts and squirms. Eventually, she opens the top of the bag on the floor and lets Gidget rest in the top.

Spoiled damn dog.

“Washington,” he says. “You got an issue with that?”

“Nah.” She rubs at Gidget’s head, thinks of how the world’s turning to winter. She’s going to have to fork over some money for something to keep her warm. Dog clothes or something. Booties. Borth had mentioned something like that, last time they had chatted. “Might hop off before then. Might not. You heading to Seattle or somewhere ‘round there?”

“North of Seattle. Near the border.”

North hums, eyes Gidget. “I’ll get off at Seattle, if you’re going through there.”

Maybe it’s time to start making her way back to Michigan.

 

* * *

 

There’s a broadcast a few weeks later as she walks along a hiking trail, Gidget unleashed and trotting alongside her with black dog booties and a warm article of dog clothing, as happy as can be. She doesn’t even know about it until Borth contacts her, nearly screaming yet again in her messages.

From what she gets from it, some group’s sent out a message that they want equal rights for humans and androids. Some sickly sweet idealist shit that makes her lip curl.

Borth’s a bit cynical about it, too, but a lot less than her.

North debates with Gidget- well, really with herself- about the merits of heading back to Michigan and Detroit now.

“I could beat some sense into those fuckers,” she thinks out loud, humming as they slowly started to get to the end of the trail. She figures that they’d just keep walking when they get to the end and onto one of the main roads- someone’ll see them and feel bad, or Gidget’ll get tired and she can just make sure she’s situated in the top of her bag before moving along. “Either beat ‘em up, or see if any other WR400s or HR400s there have come to their senses and done the same…”

Gidget barks.

“Yeah, yeah. Good girl. So, I figure these people are absolutely insane, you know? Not like humans are going to listen. Shit’s just going to get bad, and then it’ll get worse, and…” She sighs and keeps walking on, Gidget running between her legs or around her after getting a burst of energy. “I’ve met some nice humans but...they’re so few and far between. What makes ‘em think it’s the norm?”

She remembers hands pressing money into hers, people giving her tips on what to do, where to go. She remembers humans that tried to rob her in bigger cities before finding themselves getting the shit beaten out of them.

That fire in her heart has changed over the past year, it seems.

She’s gone from mostly going through more rural areas, more nature to going through cities and towns at the same rate, seeing what they had to offer, whatever deviants there were. Some pockets of the East Coast had been interesting to experience, to say the least.

North’s never strayed too close to Detroit.

Given how humans would react to the news that deviants existed, though...maybe she should go back.

 _You hold no love for Detroit,_ her thoughts remind her. _Only bad memories exist there. Those humans that held you down, the city you want to burn down-_

She shoves down that voice inside of her, straightens, and walks a bit faster when Gidget barks at her from a bit ahead.

 _It might not be my city, but my people are there and they may need help,_ she tells the voice inside of her. _I can at least visit and be there until something happens- and then I can get the fuck out of it again._

Roots weren’t good for her. She knew that, at least, knew how jittery she got when staying in one place for too long, the soothing of her soul when she watched the land go by, when Gidget shoved her nose against her hand and whined.

“Guess we really are heading back to Detroit,” she tells Gidget, a bit resigned but a bit...hm.

A bit hopeful.

The fire’s sure changed from a burning blaze into a mellower thing, rising in the direction of those that’d hurt her or Gidget instead of just at...everyone.

North leans down to pat Gidget lightly and starts running, the dog barking and bounding after her as they reach the end of the path. Her reception’s better here, especially with the RV at the campsite she ended up at, and she uses the opportunity to stand there, let Gidget eat from the little plastic bowl she had gotten, and shoot a message at Borth.

 

 **north:** I’ll be passing through on my way to Detroit, Borth. Want to come?

 

* * *

 

Turns out, Borth doesn’t want to come when she gets there a week later, but Borth does want to gasp at the sight of Gidget in person, kneeling down to shower love on her.

“Don’t do that,” she snapped at Borth. “Don’t spoil her that much.”

“Oh, I bet you do the same- oh, yes, South! You’re the best girl, yes!”

“Don’t feed Gidget lies about her name,” she growls, picking up Gidget and stepping away from Borth. Their twin whines make her eye twitch as she stares at the other WR400.

“But South’s so good-”

“Not. South.”

“Come on! It’s hilarious!” At North’s unmoving look, she deflated and started to grumble. “Well, fuck you, then..”

It’s a short moment before she brightens up again, the two of them walking through the city with Gidget on a short leash. North’s bag is getting a few strange looks, especially next to Borth’s much smaller one, but neither of them act like anything’s out of the ordinary.

“So, the PL600 that was in here- yeah, him, don’t make that face- we registered each other as contacts before he went out to see what was going on in Detroit. Long story short, there’s three people leading the revolution, they’re situated in a real shitty ship, his name’s Chad, which makes him seem more like a dick than he already is.” Borth paused. “Oh, they also raided all the CyberLife stores in Detroit day before yesterday, which is fun?”

“They kill anyone?”

“They have a thing about being all pacifist, which. I mean, it’s okay? I guess? But some of those fuckers definitely deserve death.”

“More than you’d think,” North says dryly, tugging Gidget back when she tried to run straight into someone walking past. “But,  yeah. I heard about the raids. You’re coming with, right?”

“Of course. I wanted to spend more time with you anyways, North, but you never stick in a damn spot!”

North makes a face at Borth. She sticks her tongue out back at her.

“Fuck you, Borth.”

“For the last time, it’s Thirteen!”

“Sure, Borth. Sure.”

They chatter all the way into a bus before Borth goes into stasis, too prone to boredom to be content with just watching out of a window or idly scrolling through the internet or social media for hours on end. North can’t help but smile at her before shaking her head, letting Gidget lay all over Borth’s lap lazily.

Somehow, their bond had only gotten stronger over the months, and, well…

Maybe she’d kill for Borth, too.

 

* * *

 

She hears of the march just an hour and a half before they get into the city, and it makes her keep a wary hand where her gun is as they stray far away from the bus and head deeper into the city.

It takes North a moment to piece everything back together, all the little clues she had seen just over half a year ago to get to the ship- yes, Jericho- but after she manages it, they’re taking a stroll across the city, Gidget on a shorter leash than normal.

It makes sense, really, given that she has to point her gun at a few people that approach them. Borth’s armed with a few knives- just as she is- but it’s only the gun that deters them from even trying.

“RA9, I forgot how shitty Detroit was,” she mutters, kicking some building debris over as they make their way closer to Jericho. Everything’s a bit more beaten up in this area, a bit more wrecked.

The memories it brings back aren’t good.

“I think it has some charm to it,” Borth offers, looking around at some of the murals and graffiti they pass with clear interest.

“No, nope, never. You’re not allowed to have an opinion on this shit.”

“But-”

“Nope. Shut the hell up. We’re getting close, anyways. See the eyes they have on us?”

She stops for a moment to put Gidget in her bag, given that the walking ground ahead would rough up her paws pretty badly. Borth quietly looks around as she gets Gidget situated, zips up almost all of the bag except for where her dog’s head pokes out, and heaves the bag back onto her back.

“No,” Borth says honestly. “There anyone there?”

“Looks to me like they have people on nearby rooftops and stuff now. Better security, I guess, even though it’s still shit. Didn’t you even feel the ping they sent?”

“Yeah, but I figured it was an accident,” Borth mutters. “What was it for?”

“To check who we were. I told ‘em we’re heading to Jericho.” About two minutes ago, but that doesn’t matter. There’s still someone following them. “They’re chill with it. Up we go, now, over this, off to the ship. Last time I was here, there was, like…only one entrance.”

It’s good to see that it’s still the same, still shitty, some of the androids as they walk in looking demoralized and all sad. There’s a hell of a lot more of them than when she was there a while back, that’s for sure. She shoves her way past some androids, ignores the whispers she gets for having a dog in her backpack- she sure as hell ain’t letting Gidget step on some random nail or something, geez- and beelines her way out of the main area.

Immediately, it’s somewhat quieter, even if still very busy. People bustle about and she gets snippets of what they talk about- a Markus, Josh, and Simon, the latter two sounding familiar to her- but she ultimately ignores it all until someone mentions that Markus is the leader of the whole operation.

“Hey, hey, bud.” She stops the next android that passes, raises her eyebrows at their confused blink, and continues with her question after they ask what the hell she wants them for. “You know where Markus is? Our good ‘ol leader pal? I have a question for him.”

She has a fist to the face for him, really, but it’s not like she’s about to mention that to this random android, a tired PL600 that brightens up as soon as she mentions him.

“Oh! I can take you right to him. I’m Simon- one of the leaders here. He should be able to make a little bit of time for your question...oh, is that a dog?”

Gidget barks a little. Simon seems to melt.

Faintly, North realizes that this is the PL600 she had talked to right before fucking off and leaving Detroit. She eyes him for a few seconds and tilts her bag away as they start to walk.

“Yes, and she’s mine,” she says, tone clipped and serious.

“What’s her name?”

“Gidget-”

“South-”

“For the last time, Borth, her damn name’s not South,” she snaps at her friend-sister- _RA9-what-is-she,_ flipping her off as she turns to Simon. “I’m North. This is Borth. The dog’s name is Gidget, ignore what she says, she’s as dumb as a bag of rocks.”

“First off, my name’s not Borth, it’s Thirteen, second off, I’m not dumb at all, bitch.”

Simon seems very, very perplexed by their conversation. North nearly flips him off, too, at the fascinated look he gives them.

Then there’s a moment where he has a very, very thoughtful look on his face.

“Wait,” he says, “aren’t you the WR400-”

“That came here over half a year ago, flipped off you pansies, and got the hell out of the city? Yeah.”

“...I mean, I was going to just say ‘visited for a moment’, but that works too, I guess?”

“That’s me. I came back to beat it into your heads about how you’re fucking everything up, by the way, so I hope you’re glad that you just lead me to the big ‘ol leader person.” She spots a clearly important looking guy sitting in a chair in an otherwise empty room, sees the absolutely horrified look on Simon’s face, and rushes into the room before Simon can prevent her from doing so.

“You’re the leader guy, right? Markus, or whatever?”

“Definitely not ‘or whatever’,” the guy says, leaning back in the chair to turn to her and stare at her with two different colored eyes. The intensity in his eyes is very, very surprising to her for some reason. He clasps his hands together and keeps his eyes on her, even when Simon and Borth get into the room behind her. “What can I do for you?”

“You can realize that being all spineless isn’t fucking helping your attempt at a revolution,” she says bluntly, relishing in the way his eyes widen, the way that he blinks rapidly at her before looking at Simon. “No, dumbass, look at me. What the hell’re you thinking, being sitting ducks for people to shoot at? Having all the androids you know of gather in one huge ship for humans to eventually find? They’ll bathe this place in blue, dammit. You’re only making everything worse for us outside of Detroit.”

“You’re not from here?” Amazingly enough, he seems to have ignored her whole point.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re going to get everyone here killed, bud, if you don’t go at the humans stronger, claim this city as your own, get them before they get y’all.”

“If we kill any of them, they come at us with more resources, more people,” Markus says to her, eyes alight with something she can’t decipher. “Besides, if you’re coming at this with a ‘humans are horrible’ angle-”

“But they are,” she hisses. “They fuck us, they disassemble us, they throw us around unless they actually care about the simple damn fine they’ll get if they break us. Don’t tell me you deviated with a loving family, bud. That just doesn’t happen. Humans don’t care for us, and speaking to them won’t do anything. They’ll just-”

“So you’re saying that my whole life was a lie?” He tilts his head. The emotion in his gaze is still something she can’t see clearly, but oh, it’s so dangerous, so sharp. She’s walking a fine, fine line. Her hand strays to where her gun is, just in case. “My owner- my father, I suppose- cared for me. He’s dead because of his other son, but he cared for me more times than I can count.”

Borth makes a surprised little sound. “Are you Carl Manf-”

“Carl Manfred’s android that supposedly killed him? Yes. I am.”

“Figures that you’re the only android that wasn’t abused one way or another, and you’re leading this march to hell,” she spits at him. “Not surprising, now that I think about it, but you’re not going to succeed this way, asshole.”

“Who says so? The public’s slowly moving our way.”

“ _I_ say so, bitch.”

Both Simon and Borth, behind her, start making little wheezing noises. She turns to glare at them. They start wheezing more.

“Fighting isn’t going to solve anything. An eye for an eye and-”

“Don’t spew that bullshit at me,” North roars, rushing forward to drag Markus up by his shirt, raise a fist-

 

* * *

 

“You know, I don’t think that went as planned,” North muses, taking a good long look at the outside of Jericho before she turns to Borth. “Do you think it went well?”

“Not at all, North. We got kicked out after you started to try and beat up their leader with just your fists.”

She takes another long look at the side of the ship, hums, and starts to walk away. It’s a moment before she lets Gidget out on less dangerous ground than the jagged bits of building they had been standing on, letting Gidget roam about while still attached to the leash.

“Yeah, that was a disaster,” she decides. “Wanna stay here for a few more days, stay nearby just in case some shit happens? I’m pretty sure that they’re going to get found soon, with how many people they have. And the fact that it’s easy as fuck to get there.”

They stand still for a few moments. Gidget pees on the one patch of green that’s crawling across the floor.

“Whatever,” Borth sighs. “Sure. We can stay in a nearby abandoned building, or something. Just claim that we don’t wanna head in if anyone finds us.”

And so they find a different building, park their asses in it, and sit where a bit of the building’s wall is gone to watch the nearby ship.

It’s not exactly a surprise when they see forces surrounding it, then, nearly 24 hours later.

They both turn to stare at Gidget as they get ready to head out and help when things inevitably get shitty. The thought on their minds is nearly exactly the same- who’s going to take care of her?

“I have the gun and better knife skills,” North decides, pulling the knives that Borth had on her body a split second after starting to talk, leaving two on her. “You stay here, defend Gidget for me. Murder anyone who gets near you.”

“But-”

“Nope. You’re the dogsitter for tonight. Shut the fuck up and keep Gidget quiet so they don’t zero in on your position. Shush.”

She mutes their message log so that she can pay attention to fighting, scaling down the building and booking it as fast as she can towards the ship when the shots start.

_I have to stop at least some androids from dying. I have to._

 

* * *

 

Android accuracy is really a boon when shooting, she thinks, especially after training to get all of the little jittering bits and any errors out of her system. Knife throwing, too. That’s multiple humans down, many knocked out, many others dead, and she barrels right into the ship as other androids pour out, thanking her for covering the way.

North has a grim face on. This isn’t a job that she’s excited to do, even if she’s good at it, and she doesn’t have infinite ammunition.

She’s also not the only one with a gun.

Because of this, she’s not surprised at seeing that she’s losing thirium as she stalks the hallways, shooting down each human she comes across before she runs out of ammo.

Even after that, she’s deadly. Her knives are sharp, fast, and they don’t expect a lightning-quick android darting towards them to bring a knife right up and through their neck.

North has blood and thirum on her when she meets up with Markus, who’s battling a few humans with another android and only making so much progress. She swoops in from behind, takes down the last two of them, and wipes at her face when the random android points a gun at her.

“Chill the fuck out,” she snaps at him. “I’m an android. Of course they find this place utterly defenseless. What great luck I have, damn. You two, out of here.”

“The bomb,” Markus breathes, and she stills at those two loaded words.

“A bomb? Where?”

“Wait just a second-”

He rushes over to a console that she hadn’t noticed before, his hands skimming over it before he presses a button and starts to run like a devil’s chasing him. “Come on,” he barks at them. “We gotta go. It’s gonna blow!”

“Why didn’t you do that before now? I’ve gotten, like, a million humans!”

“I couldn’t exactly instantly get here! Why’re you on the ship, anyways? I thought I kicked you out-”

“Asshole, it didn’t take a genius to figure that they were going to close in on you soon enough-”

“Less talking, more running,” the guy with them orders, frantically gesturing for them to start sprinting even faster. North flips him off and sticks her tongue out.

“Can’t tell me what to do, bitch.”

“Do you _want_ to die?”

“I mean, I have a dog that needs me and one friend, but otherwise-”

“RUN,” Markus hollers over their bickering, pushing them forwards as they sprint, as she throws a knife at an oncoming soldier, as they near the exit-

Seconds later, they’re jumping out of the open door and into the water below, proceeding to drag themselves out when the area around them is safe enough to sprint through.

“Yall’re fucked,” she informs Markus. Funnily enough, he doesn’t exactly seem pleased by her truthful words. “Where are y’all going? I’ll meet up, help this not completely fail. Shoulda gone rough from the beginning, bud.”

Turns out, where he tells her to go is some broken down, abandoned church. She makes a face at that but heads back to where Borth and Gidget are waiting, laughing when Borth rushes over to her and panickedly starts checking her wounds.

“I’m fine,” she tells her, waving both Borth and Gidget off as she sits down by her bag. “Well, I mean, it hurts like hell, but there ain’t anything I can do about it besides wrap the still bleeding wounds and getting down a packet or two of thirium.”

“But- North, what if you have a bullet still in you?”

“It’ll be fine,” she says, waving it off. “I can check it when we’re not needed somewhere. Now, mind helping me, Borth?”

“Thirteen,” Borth mutters, but it’s just the usual. “Yeah, yeah. Stay still.”

There’s a surprising amount of bandages on her when all is said and done- nearly her full supply. She considers the wrapped areas as she downs the thirium, blinking at it all quietly. “Didn’t realize they got me that much,” she tells Borth.

She makes a wheezing little panicked noise in response. “North-”

“Off to the weird church we go,” she proclaims, talking strongly over Borth. She pats her head as she stands up, Gidget trying to weave between her legs and trip her with the leash as Borth makes more distressed noises. “Come on, now. We have a depressed group of androids to go and save.”

 

* * *

 

Turns out, they’re too far gone for saving.

North makes a face at their declaration that they’re going to walk and do a big whole protest thing, Simon and Josh looking just a bit uncomfortable from where they stood behind Markus. Of course, the leader guy looks great. It’s a prerequisite for people actually following you.

She ends up standing right next to the guy that had been with Markus to set off that bomb, Gidget butting her head against his leg until he looks down at her and then up at North.

“Hey,” she says simply. Gidget barks at him. “You look like you’ve been through hell.”

When not fighting, he looks confused, a tired person fiddling with his beanie as he looks at her. “I guess you could say that,” he allows. “...I’m Connor.”

“That sounds familiar,” she murmurs, taking a long moment to think on it as she stares at him. “...Should I know you from somewhere?”

“Um.” He seems very, very uncomfortable at the question. “...Yeah, I guess. I’ve been on the news a bit, both local and national...I was, um. The RK800 partnered with the DPD to hunt down deviants.”

Ah, so that’s how she knows him. She remembers Borth’s worried messages at night about a deviant hunter, the murmurings in Jericho that there was someone like that possibly closing in…

That rage is so, so easy to flare up again.

“You hunted your own,” North says quietly, danger dancing around the edges of her voice. “You hunted your own, and you’re only here when things get bad. You-”

“The same could be said of you, by the way.”

North turns to find Markus smiling at her, his gaze quiet and knowing. Just as dangerous, just waiting below the surface to strike.

“...True,” she says, giving that point to him and twisting to glare at Connor. “At least I didn’t actively hunt my people.”

“I wasn’t even deviant then!”

“You had to have some higher degree of autonomy to do that shit,” North scoffs. “Don’t give me that bullshit.” She looks him over. That rage has gotten to her head, her fingertips, begging to get out-

Gidget bumps against her leg, and that rage lowers back to a grumbling level. Instead of lashing out, she glares at Markus next.

“You’re going to need more people for your dumbass plan,” she tells him plainly, almost businesslike. “You can’t pretend like me or Borth will just lie down and take it if they start shooting. You want us, we’re going to go at them with all we have.”

His matching stare is just as cold.

“You kill them, you wound them, things will get a million times worse for us. You want to go, you drop all your weapons and keep them here.”

They’re at an impasse.

She clenches her fists. Gidget paces. Borth shoots her a concerned message from across the room that she ignores.

“I’m not going without my weapons,” she bites out.

“Then you’re not going at all.” His gaze gets so much colder, almost bitter in its quiet manner. “Now, I have someone else-” he gestures to Connor- “-to talk to. If I see you trying to accompany us, you will be taken care of.”

That sounds ominous.

She fumes as Connor’s spirited away to a corner of the building. The next thing she feels is the weight of Borth’s hand on her arm.

“Not now, Borth, I-”

“What happened?” Her gaze is softer than usual, a bit more lost, scared. She’s never been around this many deviants before, not really, she thinks quietly. She’s never gone somewhere not knowing quite what she’ll do.

Faintly, North realizes that going to Detroit hadn’t mattered at all. Not for her, not for Borth, not for any of the androids in Jericho.

Even if these androids had failed, they still could have gone on living their lives like it had been for months. They would have managed.

“We’re going,” she tells Borth quietly, taking her hand with her free one, shouldering her bag. Gidget seems to sense that they’re about to leave; she barks, twirls around, and sits, tail wagging at them. She’s ready to go.

“Wait, what? We-”

“They don’t need us,” North says a bit too bitterly. “They don’t want us if we’re just going to defend ourselves, they want us to die for them. That’s- that’s crazy, Borth. They’re insane, and their fucking revolution is going to die, and I shouldn’t have cared about this from the start.”

“Fuck this,” North continues, each word snapped out into thin air. “Fuck this, Borth. Fuck Detroit. Fuck Jericho. Fuck this damn movement that’s about to fall into the ground and explode. Let’s go. We have- we have actual lives to live.”

“North-”

“They don’t care for us. They care only for their fucking ideals.” Her fists are clenched so, so tightly. She hisses through her teeth, shakes her head, and strides out of the building, Borth and Gidget flanking her.

“I’m not so sure this is the greatest idea,” Borth says quietly as they start to traverse the city again, stopping only to settle Gidget back into North’s huge bag. “There’s armed forces in the city, and we might look enough like WR400s for them to try and grab us up. We’re in a trap.”

“Good thing I have a gun that I just reloaded as well as knives,” she mutters. “And you have some, too. There are ways we can get out. Don’t worry, Borth.”

“Thirteen, please. I...not now, North.”

There’s a solemn kind of seriousness in her words. North looks away, mouth twisting, and nods at Borth’s- at Thirteen’s words.

“Let’s head out, Thirteen,” she says, voice tired down to its core. “There’s nothing left for us here. Nothing left for me here. I have better things to worry about than a city that never cared for me. Anyways…” She glances at Thirteen, offers a sincere smile. “I have you and Gidget. What else do I need other than a little sister and a dog?”

“Hey! Why am I the little sister?”

North reaches out a hand to ruffle her hair and bursts out laughing when she pulls away, making a face.

Yeah. They’re all she needs.

Detroit can burn down behind her, for all she cares.

 

* * *

 

Turns out, there was some insane shit with the forces encountering their march, the journalists and broadcasters onlooking- even an android or two that managed to stream the event live through their eyes until they were either killed or too damaged to properly broadcast what was going on.

It doesn’t matter to her, whatever the outcome. By the time that they go on a proper march, she’s out of the city in a stolen truck, ditching it as soon as they hit the nearest small town. Thirteen’s right beside her.

Neither of them check the news as they walk out of the town and keep going down the road, Gidget bounding alongside them.

Detroit was never what mattered.

Humans- she doesn’t give a shit of them, even in her metal and plastic and thirium body. They see her, a bit of dirt occasionally on her synthetic skin and her real as fuck clothes,

They see her messy, hair, pulled into a braid. They see the person who’s her closest thing to a sibling, see her short hair, think sisters.

They never correct them.

Instead, she walks out into the night, travel throughout the nation with both Gidget and Thirteen- no, it’s Borth again, after a while, when the name makes her splutter with simple amusement again- and they only pay a bit of attention when Jericho’s insane plan succeeds, skim the articles about android-human relations, and it all ends with them on the West Coast, finally being able to scrape up enough money to buy a shitty van and live in it as they drive about the nation.

Borth’s laying in the mattress they’d put in the back of it, scrolling through social media one morning, just before light.

North and Gidget are out by the water, standing at the edge of a cliff to watch the sun rise over the water on the horizon.

It was never about her rage, not really. Never about Jericho, never about Detroit.

It was about finding home.


End file.
